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I have to say it reminds me more of perl than PHP. Granted, PHP reminds me of perl, but not in the same way (more C'ish than perl IMO).
I wouldn't buy a book honestly. Ruby never did seem to make the big hit like it hype had suggested it would at least in the web world, but if you have the extra time I'd look into some sites that specialize in ruby. You can never go wrong with learning a new language thats for sure.

PHP Code:

header('HTTP/1.1 420 Enhance Your Calm');

Been gone for a few months, and haven't programmed in that long of a time. Meh, I'll wing it ;)

Many people use Ruby in their daily jobs. Others just as a hobby. Here you’ll find a small sample of real world usage of Ruby.

Simulations

* NASA Langley Research Center uses Ruby to conduct simulations.

* A research group in Motorola uses Ruby to script a simulator, both to generate scenarios and to post process the data.

3D Modeling

* Google SketchUp is a 3D modeling application that uses Ruby for its macro scripting API.

Business

* Toronto Rehab uses a RubyWebDialogs based app to manage and track on-call and on-site support for the IT help desk and IT operations teams.

Robotics

* At MORPHA project, Ruby was used to implemented the reactive control part for the Siemens service robot.

Networking

* Open Domain Server uses Ruby to allow people using Dynamic DNS clients to update in real time their IP configuration so that it can be mapped to static domains.

Telephony

* Ruby is being used within Lucent on a 3G wireless telephony product.

System Administration

* Ruby was used to write the central data collection portion of Level 3 Communications Unix Capacity and Planning system that gathers performance statistics from over 1700 Unix (Solaris and Linux) servers scattered around the globe.

Web Applications

* Basecamp, a web-based project management application developed by 37signals, is programmed entirely in Ruby.

* 43 Things allows you to keep a list of goals and share it with the world. It was developed entirely in Ruby.

* A List Apart, a magazine for people who make websites that has been around since 1997, has recently been revamped and uses a custom application built with Ruby on Rails.

* Blue Sequence, a sophisticated mission-critical application which forms part of Toyota Motor Manufacturing’s own “sequence-in-time” production process, has recently been selected as finalist the British Computer (BCS) Information Management Awards.

There are thousands of different languages and ways you could build a web site. Some are more popular than others, and some require specific tools or technologies.
Its popularity has a lot to do with Rails being particularly well suited to building web sites. You can make a working prototype of an idea pretty quickly, and then build out from that. It has addressed a lot of the problems you can run into on a large web project. Think of Rails as a gateway drug – you play around, build a few things, and get into Ruby- which is a very “that makes sense” language.